Speaker 1: All right, have you ever idolized somebody? And what would
Speaker 1: you do to keep them close to you? Well, Henry
Speaker 1: Ford felt that way about Thomas Edison. He admired his creativity,
Speaker 1: but most of all, he admired his work ethic. Ford
Speaker 1: was sixteen years younger than his idol So when Edison
Speaker 1: was nearing his final days, Henry Ford asked Edison's son
Speaker 1: to give him one thing. I'm Patty Steele capturing Thomas
Speaker 1: Edison's dying breath. Literally, that's next on the backstory. The
Speaker 1: backstory is back. Thomas Edison may not have invented everything
Speaker 1: he gets credit for, but nobody knew how to take
Speaker 1: a simple invention turn it into a product he could
Speaker 1: mass produce and change the everyday lives of people worldwide.
Speaker 1: And he did it with multiple inventions, including the phonograph,
Speaker 1: movie cameras, movie projectors, and most impactfully, the light bulb
Speaker 1: with which he lit the world. Thomas Edison established the
Speaker 1: first industrial research laboratory, which completely changed the way inventions
Speaker 1: were brought to market in a rapidly industrializing world. Edison
Speaker 1: was the ultimate business man, and that's why Henry Ford,
Speaker 1: who was sixteen years younger, idolized him. For his part,
Speaker 1: Edison never stopped working. He was famous for rarely sleeping
Speaker 1: more than three or four hours a night, saying that
Speaker 1: sleep was a waste of time, but he would take
Speaker 1: short naps, which he said sparked his creativity. There are
Speaker 1: even photographs of him taking power naps under a tree.
Speaker 1: He said those short daytime naps helped to recharge his mind.
Speaker 1: Those close to him said he was capable of falling
Speaker 1: asleep in under a minute, anytime, any place. If he
Speaker 1: couldn't solve a problem, he'd nap and then wake up
Speaker 1: to try a completely different approach. Not everything Edison tried
Speaker 1: was successful. He tried to improve on X ray technology
Speaker 1: when it was in its very early stages, but he
Speaker 1: had absolutely no idea what he was doing. During one experiment,
Speaker 1: his assistant, Clarence Dally, who was severely burned, lost both
Speaker 1: of his arms and eventually died from radiation poisoning. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Edison permanently damaged his left eye and
Speaker 1: his stomach, and he was emotionally scarred by what had
Speaker 1: happened to his trusted assistant. Toward the end of his life,
Speaker 1: Edison was suffering from complications of diabetes, which ultimately killed
Speaker 1: him at the age of eighty four. So we have
Speaker 1: to take a look at how such a driven guy
Speaker 1: felt about death itself. He famously said he wished he
Speaker 1: had more years left, more time to work on new ideas,
Speaker 1: especially solar energy, which he thought would be a powerful
Speaker 1: source of power. He said he loved figuring out what
Speaker 1: the world needed and then creating it. Edison also became
Speaker 1: fascinated with spiritualism toward the end of his life. It
Speaker 1: was a really popular movement in the eighteen hundreds. He
Speaker 1: believed that the human spirit was composed of tiny energy
Speaker 1: particles that would be released at the time of death,
Speaker 1: and he thought that there may one day be a
Speaker 1: way to capture those particles and reconstitute individual personalities. A
Speaker 1: question I think I'd have to ask him would be
Speaker 1: reconstitute into what where would you put it? Anyway, back
Speaker 1: to Henry Ford in his Edison connection, Edison was Ford's
Speaker 1: role model. So Ford took a job with the Edison
Speaker 1: Illuminating Company in Detroit in eighteen eighty eight when he
Speaker 1: was twenty five years old. Three years later, he was
Speaker 1: made an engineer, and he stayed with the company through
Speaker 1: most of the eighteen nineties. He actually never met Edison,
Speaker 1: who mostly worked at his lab and factory in West Orange,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, until he'd worked for him for several years
Speaker 1: out in Michigan. When they did meet at a company event,
Speaker 1: he told Edison about the experimental automobile he was building,
Speaker 1: which he called the Ford Quadricycle. He had just finished
Speaker 1: the prototype and was working to perfect it. Edison was
Speaker 1: fascinated and really encouraged him to keep developing it. Not
Speaker 1: long after, Ford left the Edison Company to devote his
Speaker 1: full attention to the Quadricycle, which would eventually become the
Speaker 1: Model t He used Edison's manufacturing in business principles to
Speaker 1: create the Ford Motor Company, where he mass produced an
Speaker 1: affordable car for the Messes. Andry stayed close to Edison
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. They even bought neighboring
Speaker 1: estates in Fort Myers, Florida. In fact, they built another
Speaker 1: research lab down there in which they worked on creating
Speaker 1: a rubber like latex material for car tires. And Ford
Speaker 1: was also extremely interested in the afterlife. As a lot
Speaker 1: of powerful people are, they always want more. Right. He
Speaker 1: was said to believe that a person's soul is located
Speaker 1: in their final breath, so toward the end of Edison's life,
Speaker 1: Ford was apparently a bit obsessed with capturing Thomas's last breath.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the only one. The story goes that Edison's son,
Speaker 1: maybe at Thomas's or Ford's request, had anywhere from eight
Speaker 1: to over forty test tubes by his father's bedside as
Speaker 1: death approached, all to capture Thomas's final breath. Sources from
Speaker 1: the Ford Museum say that in nineteen thirty one, mister
Speaker 1: Ford asked Charles Edison to catch his father's final breath
Speaker 1: and sit beside him with test tubes close to his mouth.
Speaker 1: They say Ford was a man with many eccentricities as
Speaker 1: was Edison, including some interest in reanimation and spiritualism, and
Speaker 1: some say that he was attempting to capture Edison's soul
Speaker 1: as it escaped his body in hopes of later reanimating him.
Speaker 1: After Edison died, the test tubes were sealed with paraffin
Speaker 1: wax and one of them sent to Henry Ford. You
Speaker 1: can actually see it if you visit the Henry Ford
Speaker 1: that's a museum dedicated to Ford's life and inventions. In
Speaker 1: Dearborn Michigan. Thomas Edison died at the age of eighty
Speaker 1: four on October eighteenth, nineteen thirty one, at his home
Speaker 1: in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, just a
Speaker 1: short walk from his laboratory and factory. But according to
Speaker 1: the Definitive Biography of Edison by Neil Baldwin, called Edison
Speaker 1: inventing the century. Just before he died, Thomas briefly awakened
Speaker 1: from a coma. Looking up at his wife Mina. He
Speaker 1: said his final words, which may have referenced the afterlife,
Speaker 1: He said, it is very beautiful over there. Hope you
Speaker 1: like the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would love it
Speaker 1: if you would subscribe or follow for free to get
Speaker 1: new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to dm me
Speaker 1: if you have a story you'd like me to cover.
Speaker 1: On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
Speaker 1: at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the backstory with Patty Steele, the
Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.